Duplicating apparatus



May 20, 1924. 1,494,581 A. BREUER ET AL DUPLICATING APPARATUS Filed July 10 1920 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Ma 'zo, 1924. 1,494,581

- A. BREUER ET AL DUPLICATING APPARATUS Filed July 10 1920 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Eran/Z0111,- rmz rb free/er May 20 1924. 1,494,581

A. BREUER ET AL DUPLICATING APPARATUS m Filed Jul? 10, 1920 3 Shee'cf-Sheet 5 Patented May 20, 1924.

UNITED STATES 1,494,581 PATENT OFFICE.

ARMIN BREUER AND ARNO HEYN, OF BERLIN, GERMANY.

DUPLICATING APPARATUS.

Application filed July 10, 1920. Serial No. 395,416.

(GRANTED UNDER THE PROVISIONS on THE ACT or mm'cn a, 1921, 41 STAT. L., 1312,.

To all whom it may concern: Be'it known that we, ARMIN BREUER an ARNo I-IETN, citizens of the State of Germany, residing at Berlin, Mot'zstr. 79, Germany, have inventedcertain new and use-- like, are caused to arise which in a very 'short time render the stencil useless. The reason for this fact may be sought in the unequal spring action exerted by the springs supporting the upper cylinder, since these wear unevenly as a result of the constant strain to which they are subjected, thus giving rise to the formation of differences in tension on the part of the feed bands serving to connect the two cylinders. Moreover, the operation of assembling and adjusting the upper cylinder, as also the replacing and exchanging of the feed bands, (all which is frequently required to be done) can only be A carried out by means of a very powerful and excessive compressionof the springs, so that these as a result become overstrained. Hence, as already stated, the tensions of the feed bands gradually become unequal, so that in the first instance strong springs must 7 be used in order to effectively permit a loss I of tension. A further disadvantage resides in the fact that in machines heretofore known, the device, which serves; to press the paper sheet to be duplicated (the work-sheet) against the printing cylinder, is apt to strike heavlly against the stencil fixed intermediate the.

pressure roller and the cylinder, when the latter and the pressure device are brought into cooperation during the operation of the duplicator which causes the stencil to become so damaged as to be useless after a cer- .tain number ofgjeopies have been made. And

,likewise the kneljwn means for attaching the stencil to the feed bands, as also the manner in which the said feed bands are usually caused to enter into engagement with the printing cylinder clearly produce obvious defects. The cross bar supporting or carry mg the stencil hasheretofore been provided with stationary buttons or pins into which the stencil is loosely locked, an arrangement which generally causes the formation of longitudinal folds or creases in the stencil and therewith its fracture. The said cross bar is fixed to the feed bands by means of rivets or screws, the heads of which slightly project and thus prevent thefeed bands from lying uniformly level on the edges of the cylinders, a fact which has again caused differences of pressure to arise, while the bands are seriously weakened and in consequence are apt to be easily broken.

The present invention is intended to successfully obviate all these drawbacks and disadvantages. To obviate the first of the above Imentioned difficulties, the springs which serve to draw the cylinders apart are adjustably arranged, a supporting surface being provided which will permit of an easy removal or of an entire release of parts, during the exchanging or replacing of the feed bands or of the upper cylinder.

To obviate the second named difliculty the roller for pressing the work-sheet against the stencil is gently raised, without the aid of a spring, to the level of the cylinder and it is only after the pressure roller has engaged with the cylinder, that the former is pressed or forced against the latter' by aid of a light spring which grad ually enters into action. ment any possibility of the stencil being By this arrangeinjured, even while the apparatus, is being run at a high rate of spec will be avoided. Further,'this arrangement permits the resetting of the pressure roller in addition to permitting the pressure to be suitably regulated and adjusted. Any want of uniformity in said pressure, apt to arise owing to a conical formation of the pressure roller or of the cylinder is effectively couneral direction, and the formation f folds -or creases be prevented. Any possibility of the feed bands breaking is obviated by their being provided with buttons, semicircular in shape, adapted to engage with corresponding depressions formed in t e cylinder and which at the same time serve as a means of attaching the cross bar or bridgeemember so that. no projecting rivet heads will any longer be required. This improved arrangement furthermore enables the machine to operate without noise.

An embodiment of the invention is shown by way of example in the accompanying drawings in which:

the engagement of the feed bands with the cylinders.

The reference letters G and H denote the two rollers orcylinders which are constructed in the customary form and which are connected to each other by the feed bands J. In accordance with this invention the spindle K of the upper cylinder is journaled at each side in a slide or block b adapted to slide perpendicularly within a bearing a secured to the framework B Each of the blocks 1) is forced upwardly I by a spring 0, fitted in a vsleeve d, screwed into the bearing a. By screwing the sleeve (1! eitherup or down, the spring 0 maybe placed under more or less tension, so that any relaxing of the spring tension, which would be liable to cause the stencil to run out of alignment maybe readily counterbalanced by adjustment. When the sleeves d are entirely withdrawn from the bearings a the cylinder. G will be entirely released and may then be readily exchanged along with the feed bands J. This is due to the fact that the blocks-b in which the ends of the cylinder spindle K are journaled are supported directly by the springs, instead of being engaged by the'screws; and since the springsthemselves are seated in. and

carried by the hollow screws,'the latter and the springs may be removed together, whereupon the blocks b can be withdrawn from the bearings a, thus permitting the direct removal of the cylinder from the framework P.

A special advantage of this arrangement resides in the fact that the springs selected .need not be any stronger than is absolutely necessary to effect the drawing or pressing apart of the two cylinders since, owing to the possibility of resetting the springs, whenever required, the liability of the ten sion relaxing at any time need no longer be taken into consideration. Hence, the feed bands J will neither be over-strained, nor break readily.

At each side, the pressure roller 9 is mounted in a supporting plate e, which plates in their inoperative positions assume the position shown in full lines in Figs. 1

and 2. The roller -g is disposed with each end of its shaft located in a slot f in supporting plate 6 and supported on one arm of a bell crank lever 71. pivoted to the supporting plate and moved by a spring a secured to the other arm 71.. of the bell-crank lever h and to the supporting plate 6. The bellcrank lever 71. is limited in its movement under the influence of the spring/Z by means of a stop fixed to the plate 6 and a coacting adjustable stop in the form of a screw 1 extending, through the arm 72/. Each of the supporting plates 6 is provided with two arms Z and mwhich are secured to the rods -R and Q, respectively, which are mounted in the framework P; the arms being pivotally secured to the plates 6. These guide arms have their axis of rotation so arranged with relation to the plates e that the plates move in parallel planes and are maintained in horizontal position when being Shifted from the full line to the dot and dash line positions as shown in Fig. 1. In dot and dash line or raised position the pressure roller 9 engages with the lower cylinder H.' The supporting plates e are thus raised by means of a bar at, 'on which one of the platese is adapted to rest and engage by means of a roller 0'. The bar n is ided in a vertical direction along a parallel plane by means of two guide arms 1? n the ends of which are pivoted to the bar n and the frame P of the apparatus. The guide arms a, n being shifted from the position shown in full lines (Fig. 1). into that shown in dash and'dotlines, will simultaneously raise the bar it into the position indicated in dash and dot lines and with it the'plates e and the roller g. The movement of the bar 11. and of the guide arms at, n is effected by --means of aslever' 32 having a" roller p engaging with a cam disc 9 and being provided with a slot p at one end engaging with a pin or roller 11. on the bar n. The other-end of the lever p is pivoted to the frame P at p. The cam disc 9 serves to move the lever 79 into the inoperative position shown in full lines. For the purpose of shifting said lever into the Working position, shown in dash and dot lines it is con nected with a lever 29 pivoted at p to the frame P by means of a link p pivotally connected to said levers p and 79 said lever p being operated by a cam disc 9 It should be understood that the cam disc 9 will not assume the position shown in Fig. 1 at the 'same time when the cam disc 9 happens to be in engagement with the lever p. Therefore, the two discs 9 and 1 in reality assume quite a difierent position relatively to each other from the one shown in the drawing. For this reason the cam disc 9 is represented in dash and dot lines.

By virtue of the aforesaid arrangement the pressure roller is raised gradually by the lever 12 At the instant this roller comes to bear against the stencil stretched over the cylinder H no tension exists between these two members. The roller will consequently and in true correspondence with the shape of the cam 9 place itself gently against the stencil; and as the movement of the lever 12 continues the spring 2' will be gradually placed under tension. The reason for this is that as the plate 6 continues to rise, the pressure roller 9 engaging with the stencil will rotate the lever h counter to the action of the spring 71. Hence, the operation of pressing the roller 9 against the'stencil is carried out under spring action, but, however, in such a manner that as the power. of the. spring jisgradually increased, the correspond'ng part of the stencil is prevented from eing damaged. Another advantage of is arrangement of the levers is that the spring 21 may be placed under tension without requiring any particular expenditure of force on the part of the person working or attending to the apparatus, because at the time whensaid operation has to .be effected the guide arms 12*, w will be disposed almost perpendicularly. The op eration of forcing these members into their final positions thus requires the exertion of but an extraordinarily small amount of force, so that even a great spring pressure can be overcome with comparative ease. Hence the machine may be operated with a slight expenditure of energy.

As shown in Fig. 2 a plate e and a device for raising and lowering same are arranged at each end of the roller 9, although only one barn and one mechanism for operating the same are provided. But this one bar n is suflicient since the levers Z and m on both sides are fixed to a common axle Q; and B respectively, one of which is only represented in Fig. -2.

As the two levers It may be reset separately by their setting screws '1' it is possible to adjust the position of the pressure roller and thereby compensate for any lack of uni formityin the pressure exerted at either side owing to possible conicity of said roller. In addition and in view of the fact that two separate cam discs g and 9 respectively are employed for the purpose of raising and .lowering the plates 6 it is'possible to raise and lower the plates atany time whatsoever by a-suitable adjustment of-said cam discs and the raising and lowering operations may be separately controlled as desired. It

follows that the position of the heading or I free space on the upper end of the sheet to be printed or duplicated, as also the length of space required for the text or body of the letter or the like, may be varied at will by the mere adjustment of these cam discs.

The feed bands J employed to establish the connection between the cylinders G and H and for other purposes, in order to avoid their durability and strength being impaired by the formation of holes therein, are

provided with semicircular heads or buttons (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) which may consist of rivets s suitably fixed in the said bands J at regular intervals therealong. It is obvious that these heads or buttons may also. be formed by stamping or by a similar operation and thattheir shape need not be absolutely semi-circular. These semi-circular heads-or buttons coact with depressions or grooves 8 arranged at equal distances apart in the edges of the cylinders G and H into which they are adapted to engage, so that in addition to reinforcing the feed bands, they render the machine silent in operation.

In this form of construction, the cross bar fixing the bar a by means of a nutt to said screw. bolts.

For the purpose of attaching the'stencil proper there are arranged tomove laterally on the transverse bar it two slide bars 4) and v operated by a slotted disc w pivoted to bar u. Within a slot formed in the disc w are slidingly mounted two. pins '0 one of which is fixed to each of the slide bars a, and a. When the disc to is rotated by hand or by drawingout the head '0 fixed to the slide bar 12 in the direction indicated by the arrow in Fig. 4, the slide barsw and o are moved out ofthe position shown in full lines in Fig. 4 into the position marked by dash anddot lines. The slide bars a, o are provided with headed pins or buttonsw on being this shifted into the position indicat-' ed in Fig. 6 and may therefore in turn stretch the stencil, so that this latter will, in

all circumstances, be found to lie perfectly taut andflat, even when the perforations or slots in the edge L of the stencil happen to be uneven. In any case, however, the forming of creases will be rendered impossible. The slots N in" the stencil will preferablybe shaped in the manner shown in Fig. with theirf stem portions or bores so arranged that the line 0 along which the pins a; will slide is a, rectilinear one. By these means, any possibility of the stencil being shifted out of alignment when the pins move laterally is successfully avoided. 1

It will be obvious that the described apparatus may be modified in. various manners without departing from the spirit of the invention.

We claim: i

1. In a duplicating machine, the combination of a cylinder; a frame wherein the cylinder isarranged having bearings at opposite ends of the cylinder; a screw threaded into each bearing; and a spring carried by each screw and itself supporting the adjacent-end of the cylinder; said screws being adjustable independently of each other in said hearings to vary the tension of the springs, and being completely removable, together with the springs, from the hearings to enable the direct removal of the cylinder from the frame. l

2. In a duplicating machine, the combination of a cylinder; a frame wherein the cylinder is arranged havin bearings at opposite ends of the cylin e a hollow screw threaded into each bearing; and a "s' rin fittin in each screw and pro'ectin P g g l g above the same to support the adjacent end of the cylinder; said screws being adjustable independentlyl of each other in said bearings to vary t and being completely removable, together with the springs, from the hearings to enable the direct removal of the cylinder from theframe.

3. In a duplicating machine, the combination of a printing cylinder;a pressure roller for coaction therewith; and operating mechanism for said roller acting automatically to lift it directly upward into engagement with the cylinder, saidmechanism including means for forcing the roller yieldingly against said cylinder after sucn engagement has been effected.

, 4. In a duplicating machine, the combination of a printing cylinder; a pressure roller for coaction therewith; and operating mechanism for said roller acting automatically to lift it directly upward into engagement with the cylinder, said mechanism including springs which are put under tension after such engagement has been effected, thereby to yieldingly force thefroller against said cylinder. i t

' 5. Ina duplicating machine, the combination of a printing cylinder; a pressure roller for coaction therewith; supporting bearings e tension of the springs,

ings; a stop on each lever; springs adapted for the ends of said roller; means connected to lift saidbearings and therewith said roller directly upward into engagement with the cylinder; springs for pressing said roller against the cylinder; and means for tensioning said springs to effect said pressing action, said tensionin'g means being brought into operation only after such engagement has commenced.

6. In a duplicating apparatus, the combination of a printing cylinder; a pressure roller: supporting bearings wherein the ends of the roller are mounted; a parallel-mo- 1 tion device connected with said hearings to lift the same and therewith said roller directly upward into engagement with the cylinder; and springs associated with the roller to press it yieldingly against said cylinder, but placed under tension to effect said pressing operation only after such engagement has commenced. I v a 7. Ina duplicating apparatus in combination a printing cylinder, a pressure roller; lateral end plate bearings; slots formed in said bearings in which said pressure roller is mounted; means for yieldingly supporting said roller within said slots; a parallel guide for: said bearings; and means for raising and lowering said bearings.

8. In a duplicating apparatus in combina tion a printing cylinder; a pressure roller; lateral end late bearings; slots formed insaid bearings in' which said pressure roller is mounted; spring actuated levers pivotally connected with said bearings andyieldingly supporting said roller within said slots; a parallel guide for said bearings; and means for raising and lowering said bearings.

9. In a duplicating apparatus in combination a printing cylinder; a pressure roller; lateral end plate bearings; slots formed in said'bearings in which said pressure rolleris mounted; s ring actuated'levers pivotally connected wit said bearings and yleldingly supporting said roller within said slots; a stop arranged on each of the bearings; a stop on each lever engaging said first mentioned stop for limiting its movement; a parallel guide for said bearings; and means for raising and lowering said bearings.

10. In a duplicating apparatus in combination a printing cylinder; a pressure roller; lateral end plate bearings; slots formed in said bearings in which said pressure roller is mounted; spring actuated levers pivotally connected with said bearings and supporting said roller within said slots; a stop arranged on each ofthe bearto bring said stopsinto engagement. with each other; a parallel guide for said bear-' ings; and" means for raising and lowering said bearings.

,11. In a duplicating apparatus in com.-

bination a printing cylinder; a pressure. 3

roller; lateral end platebearings; slots formed in said bearings in which said pressure roller is'. mounted; spring actuated levers pivotally connected with said bearings and yieldingly supporting said roller within said slots; a stop arranged on each of the bearings; an adjustable stop on each lever; springs adapted to bringsaid stops into engagement with each other; a parallel guide for said bearings; and means for raising and lowering said bearings. I v

' 12. In a duplicating apparatus of the type described in combination a printing cylinder; a pressure roller; acam device for bringing said cylinder and roller intoengagernent; and a separate cam device for moving said cylinder and roller out of engagement'with eachother.

13. In" a duplicating apparatus of the type described in combination a. frame; a

printing cylinder rotatably mounted on said frame; a pressure roller; and two separate cam devicesto carry out the operations of raising and lowering the said roller into and out of engagement with said cylinder respectively.

14. In a duplicating apparatus of the type described in combination two cylinders; feed bands connecting the same; a

stencil support; projections arranged at regular distances from each other on the said bands; and grooves arranged on the cylinders corresponding to said projections,

. one of the projections of each band being adapted to serve as a means of attachment for said stencil support.

15. In a duplicating apparatus of the type described in combination two cylin- -ders; feed bands connectin the same; and 40 a stencil support arrange on said feed bands comprising bars for receiving a stencil, said bars being adapted to be shifted endwise relative toeach other in opposite directions to stretch the stencil laterally.

16. In a duplicating apparatus of the type described in combination two cylinders; feed bands connecting the same; and a stencil support arranged. on said feed bands comprising bars provided with heads for receiving a stencil, said bars and heads being adapted to be shifted, endwise relatively to each other in opposite directions -to stretch the stencil laterally.

stencil support arranged on said feed bands;

a stencil supported by said stencil support and having key-hole slots; and heads on said stencil support engaging with said slots, the latter having their bores so arranged that the heads slide along a rectilinear line.

In testimony whereof we have affixed our signatures in presence of two witnesses.

ARMIN BREUER. ARNO HEYN. Witnesses:

LUPOR OYER, KAPPE GEEOH. 

